St John's Lodge, London

Symmetrical four-storey Neoclassical villa with an imposing pedimented entrance and balustrades around a valley roof surmounted by a small cupola and flanked by two-storey wings, the whole covered with stucco rendering painted pale pink. In front is a freshly mown lawn surrounded by plants and shrubs. In the foreground is a raised round stone pool with a bronze of a nude man being pulled into the water by a mermaid.
St John's Lodge
1833 map of the Inner Circle of Regents Park shows St. John's Lodge on the outside perimeter at about one o'clock and The Holme at about ten o'clock. The inside of the Inner Circle is labeled "Jenkins Nursery".
Map of the Inner Circle (c. 1833)

St John's Lodge is a private residence in Regent's Park, London. Since 1994 it has been leased by the royal family of Brunei,[1] and is the London home of Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei.[2]

It is located on the Inner Circle of Regent's Park, which until 1965 was in the Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone and is now part of the City of Westminster.[3]

It was built in 1812[4] and designed by the architect John Raffield, for Charles Augustus Tulk. The lodge was the first house to be built in Regents Park. The Royal Parks service describes it and The Holme as the only two villas remaining from John Nash's original conception of Regents Park.,[5] which would have included a royal palace, as well as many large villas; a scheme which was soon abandoned. Other owners of the lodge have included Lord Wellesley, Sir Isaac Goldsmid and a Marquess of Bute.

The building was occupied by the University of London's Institute of Archaeology, from 1937 to 1959, and by the history and classics departments of Bedford College, from 1959 to 1983. The adjoining gardens have been open to the public since 1928.[1]

In 1987, it was bought by the development company Messila House for £9 million, and almost doubled in size to 35,000 square feet, before being sold in 1994 to the Brunei royal family for £40 million, making it the then most expensive single private house in the UK.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 "London Gardens Online". London Gardens Online. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  2. ↑ Is the party over for runaway billionaire Prince Jefri of Brunei?". The Daily Telegraph. 14 June 2008.
  3. ↑ Westminster Boundary (Map). City of Westminster. 2008. LA 100019597 2008. Retrieved 14 April 2009.
  4. ↑ "Regent'S Park Add". London-footprints.co.uk. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ Anne Spackman (15 December 1994). "Sultan pays record £40m for park lodge". The Independent. Retrieved 29 January 2017.

Bibliography

  • Stourton, James (2012). Great Houses of London (Hardback)|format= requires |url= (help). London: Frances Lincoln. ISBN 978-0-7112-3366-9.

Coordinates: 51°31′46″N 0°09′09″W / 51.52957°N 0.15250°W / 51.52957; -0.15250

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.